One of the cool features of the Mac OS X Dock is the ability to create stacks and folders on it. You can group applications, documents, or other forms of data that are easy to reach on the Dock. As we all know, Mac OS X Lion was released with the intent of adding numerous forms of multi-touch gestures to Mac OS X. With three-finger dragging, two-finger scrolling, and four-finger paging between applications, Mac OS X Lion has made it possible to eliminate any kind of mouse altogether. You don't even need to click with the multi-touch pad because you can just tap to click.

Another feature that you may not have known about is that using a hidden terminal command, you can enable multi-touch gestures to open and close folders or stacks on the Mac OS X Dock. Alternatively, if you use a traditional point and click mouse, using the scroll wheel will open the folder as well. To do this, hover your pointer over the icon that is either a stack or a folder, and use either the mouse's scroll wheel to open it, or use the Mac's Magic Mouse or Multi-touch pad to scroll to open the stack or folder. It's that simple.

Enabling this feature is done through a terminal command which switched a Boolean variable value to true and then restarts the Mac OS X Dock. The command you need to enter is:

PHP Code:

defaults write com.apple.dock scroll-to-open -bool TRUE;killall Dock

Additionally, if you decide that you don't like the feature, you can disable it with this command:

PHP Code:

defaults delete com.apple.dock scroll-to-open;killall Dock

In case you were wondering, "killall Dock" is similar to respringing your iPhone except for your Mac. If you open MobileTerminal on your iPhone and enter, "killall SpringBoard" your iPhone will respring. The Dock is a critical part of Mac OS X and in some cases, restarting the dock can be a method to restart services on your computer instead of restarting the whole computer. Not always, but it works with core system file replacements.

Great Anthony - did not know this. HOWEVER, if you - like me - are just tapping to click then the difference between scrolling to open folder and doing a simple tap to open folder is equal to nothing. So, if you are tapping (not clicking) to execute actions then this does not have much relevance in terms of usefulness.But tips to enhance user experience are always more than welcome - some will use them, some won't.Merry Xmas!

Hello all, I am loving this tweak. However, I am curious about two things:

1) When I enter the reverse code in Terminal, it says that the command is not found. I'd like to know how to reverse it. Also,

2) Can someone please clarify? Now that I have tried using 2-finger scroll over apps in the dock, I've noticed it shows me all active windows and/or recent files. 2-fingers up shows windows and 2-fingers down hides app. Was this native to Lion or is this tweak a part of it? I don't know because I never really tried 2-finger scroll over dock apps before. Thanks

When I first read this article I thought it was only about scrolling through your folders when they are in the dock and opened, I can now see how it might be useful if u didn't already have tap to click on(instead of push to click) but who doesn't have that enabled?